Even in today's Facebook era, where our past lives and former friends clutter up our Facebook pages every single day, there's still something special about yearbooks. They can somehow transport you to a simpler and more meaningful time in a way that digital photos can't. Whether or not it's their paper existence, many people experience an emotional rollercoaster into the past whenever they pick it up.

But what if you're blind? While it will doubtlessly save you a lot of Facebooking time every day, you also can't experience those memories as vividly as a yearbook conjures them up. Fortunately, one small Korean 3D printing company has come up with a solution: a Touchable Yearbook, featuring very accurate, 3D printed busts of students and a braille name tag, allowing blind students to feel and experience their own past once again through touch.

Now this isn't exactly a printing service quite yet, though I can imagine a lot of people would be interested in it. Instead, 3D TEK recently worked together with the Seoul National School for the Blind, the largest education facility for the blind in South Korea, to give its students an unforgettable graduation day. As the producers behind 3D TEK explained, 'We showcased the yearbook for the first time on the graduation day which gathered more than 2,000 people. We gave huge impression not only to students but also to people attending. Now the students can recall the faces of friends even after graduation as long as they keep the yearbook.'

The graduating students were each given these Touchable Yearbooks, consisting of a series of busts of their fellow students, which was quite an emotional experience. Imagine just how valuable the gift of accurate memory is to someone who's forced to rely on touch alone. As the team from 3D Tek explained, 'our invention made a huge impression among not only students but also people attending. By the yearbook the students will not forget each other forever and we expect more blind students can have their own yearbooks afterwards.'

Just look at the video below to see how emotionally powerful this 3D printed yearbook can be:

한글 ver (Korean version):

The company was very pleased with the response they received, and is currently looking into future distributing options. They were reportedly very pleased to see that 3D printing could also be at the core of a positive news story, which we can all agree with. Alongside endeavours like E-NABLE's 3D printed prosthetics, this manufacturing technology is really maturing as a genuinely helpful and life-altering technology, especially for those living with disabilities.